Digital Writing/ Digital Rhetoric Douglas Eyman George Mason University

two statements

Writing is a Technology

Denis Baron: "When we write with cutting edge tools, it is easy to forget that whether it consists of energized particles on a screen or ink imbedded in paper or lines gouged into clay tablets, writing itself is always first and foremost a technology…"(16).

Writing is Visual Visual

Writing is Visual Diana George: "In fact, it has become common today to talk of multiple literacies, to encourage the uses of visual communication in the teaching of writing, and to argue that writing is itself a from of visual communication“ (27).

Is This Writing?

What is ‘Composition’? Carlos Salinas: “Composition today increasingly concerns itself with the production and consumption of words, images, sound, video, animation, etc.” (CCCC Presentation, 21 March 2003) Gunther Kress: “…individuals are now seen as the remakers, transformers, of sets of representational resources—rather than as users of stable systems, in a situation where a multiplicity of representational modes are brought into textual compositions” (87).

a mission statement (digirhet.net)

Digital Comp/Rhet should engage students not only in the technical (how-to) aspects of work with digital communication and composition media and technologies, but also with the critical analysis of that media should encourage students to explore different computer and communication technologies so that they may choose the best technology to facilitate their writing and the rhetorical situation to which they are responding

Digital Comp/Rhet should promote the understanding of both writing and technology as complex, socially situated, and political tools through which humans act and make meaning should encourage students to recognize that composing takes place within, is shaped by, and serves to shape social, educational, and political contexts

the ‘how’ vs. the ‘why’

Community Critical Engagement Practical Application

Community Students need to engage community in a variety of ways: Developing community in the classroom Explore networks as community support mechanisms Examine technologies that support or suppress community activities Work to produce digital compositions that enact or support community building

Critical Engagement Ask students to examine and critique the interfaces of the computers they use examine where computers and wireless access are accessible (and not accessible) on campus and specific communities

Practice/Praxis Praxis = practice + reflection Provide opportunities for students to become digital producers Teach “Interface Literacy” Allow students to work on real-world problems with social and political contexts outside the academy.

Task 1 How does this framework work with your current classes? How might you build this into your courses given your particular institutional goals? (“tolerable to the local context”?)

Task 2 Brainstorm ideas for digital composition assignments that ask students to engage in Community Critical engagement Practical application

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